Category Archives: Health

Simple coaching techniques anyone can use

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Picture, Nick Zart

Here are some tools you can use with and outside of coaching.  Some of them are free, some of them are available for purchase.

Meditation.  Here is a topic that is so often misunderstood.  While some view meditation in the strict sense of Zen Buddhist, rigid, static, striving for that illusive spontaneous self, other see a way to relax.  The bottom line is that meditation helps you connect back with your self, take scope and regroup.  It’s a must for anyone wanting to reclaim their runaway life and none other than high up successful executive and business owners know its merit all too well.

You can start simply on your own by devoting 15 minutes every day by yourself, with yourself.  Find a secluded spot in your home.  If you can, buy yourself something to shield any lights away from from you.  I found MindFold to be particularly effective and anyone can actually build one from scrap.  You can also use noise cancelling headsets, such as Boses Quiet Comfort or others.  Once comfortably seated, close your eyes, and start by observing yourself.  Observe your breath.  Don’t be disturbed by thoughts coming into to your mind.  Simply, in a detached way, let them slip away.  They are not you, nor do they define you.  The are just thoughts.

Binaural Beats:  Binaural beats are interesting and for those who have been reading this blog, I wrote a little about it a year or so ago.  What they do is put a tone in one ear and another one, slightly off-tune in the other in order to balance both hemispheres.  This allows you to go into deep states of relaxation, meditation and even concentration.

The Monroe Institute pioneered this type of work and perfected it over the decades.  Their CDs are available.   Mark Certo hails himself as a sonic alchemist and worked closely with the Monroe Institute.  His CDs called The Tranquility Training Method (TTM) are fantastic and I’ve particularly enjoyed them.

Soul Contract Reading.  The new tool I added for my practice is called Soul Contract Reading.  The system, also called the Holy Numerology of Moses goes back to millennial and has been “reintroduced” in order to facilitate this forward momentum the human race is experiencing.  By phonetically translating each letter to its Hebrew equivalent, a number and “energy” is given and put on a chart.  This charts helps you understand why your life works the way it down and how to make full use of it.  My initial reading was so fascinating and intense, I felt this would be an amazing tool for coaching.

Listening to your heartbeat is very helpful, so is your breath.  After sometime, you will find that inner peace many speak of.  In these states, everything becomes relative and problem solving is done with great ease.

Those are the basic free, if not at least affordable techniques anyone can use.  Still, nothing replaces a certified, professionally trained Coach.

Join me for Birth 2012: Convergence Day this Saturday 15th, 12:00pm PST, 3:00pm EST

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  Dear friends,

I’d like to invite you to join me for a free virtual event with inspiring visionary leaders such as Michael Bernard Beckwith, Neale Donald Walsch, Jean Houston, Jack Canfield, Lynne McTaggart and more – all joining with futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard to explore how we can create a shared vision for global change in 2012.

It’s called Birth 2012: Convergence Day, and it’s happening this Saturday, October 15th, at 12:00pm Pacific / 3:00pm Eastern.

Get all the details and join me and the 37,000 people who have been drawn to this inspiring vision here.

I think you’ll enjoy hearing about how we can co-create a major planetary impact in 2012 and evolve humanity into a new era. Also, you can sign up even if you can’t attend live and you’ll be sent the recording.

Warm regards,
Nick

How to live a balanced life anywhere

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Watching the movie: “The Science of Healing with Dr. Esther Sternberg” made me smile.  Western medicine is discovering the virtues of traditional Mediterranean healthy living…

The gist is many of us know intuitively or by having lived abroad that a healthy involves a life/work balance.  That documentary approaches that topic well.  Dr. Sternberg discovers a century old way of living and it health benefit.  In other word balancing work, play, eat, enjoy and rest makes for a healthy life.

It’s interesting to see the paradigm shift currently happening.  On the one hand, there well established business 1.0 companies making a fortune on consumers not living well, eating poor food and treating ailments.  What happens when more people become vegetarians, vegan and eat organic or local produced foods?

It will be a few interesting upcoming years…

Self Help, great but pople don’t think they need help…

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Self Help has been all the rage for the past few decades but a reality check still shows, most people don’t think they need help.

The gist is indeed, people understand something is amiss but the reaction is to work more, harder and earn more money.  Last I checked, money does not bring happiness automatically, you work on making money to make you happy.  A trick and feast onto itself.

Self Help, But What For?  And exactly what is meant by Self Help anyway?  We help ourselves by working and sustaining our lives on this planet, but that doesn’t offer a complete vision of what is meant by Self Help.  Self Help is really about answering those nagging life long questions that aim to answer the root core, who am I and what am I here for.

My Self Help.  We should have a phone app called My Self Help.  It would remind you to take time to meditate.  It would give you subtle cues when the day’s perpetual motions drags you down the road to more and more tasks to attend to and situations to solve.  It’s an abyss that drags us down the road to self denial.

My Self Help App would also give you something to ponder upon, such as: “Is what I am doing here and now conducive to my highest fulfillment?” but add to it, the answer doesn’t matter, awareness is key.

All in all, the greatest Self Help I know is to ask question with a constant curiosity about life, yourself and how you fit it in all.  Answers are deeply, deeply personal.

What does it mean to be a man today?

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Picture: Nick Zart

I was stomped when asked what does it mean to be a man in today’s society.

The gist is there is no manual.  It surely can’t be the stereotype weight lifter at the gym, nor the attitude guy driving his car hand on the other side of the steering wheel.  Being a man today is much dynamic, with fuller depth and surely much deeper than meets the eye.  It has to be that inner most wisdome we have neglected over the decades.

What It Means To Be A Man Today.  A man today should be many things, including something most aren’t used to, deep, in touch with their inner wisdom and feelings.  Ancient societies provided young men rites of passage, today we have no such things but to sit down and think it through.

so What Is A Man, Then?  A man who acknowledges when wrong, one who knows with quiet confidence when right, one who uses wisdom and compassion wisely.  Most of these attributes I realized were found in Dzogchen, the purest esoteric form of Tibetan Buddhism… of all place.

Here is a passage I was reading this morning on Gyalshen: “Dzogchen practice gives us a clarity that is powerful enough to recognize that whatever emotion we experience, be it anger, depression, fear, or joy is not separate from the true nature of the mind. This recognition is wisdom.  It gives us the strength to leave things as they are. Our ability to leave things as they are reduces our subconscious attachment to the conditioning that judges or manipulates our emotions. We are accepting our feelings. We are becoming aware of what we are feeling right now, and we stop right there. We don’t allow that emotion to take over our life. We do not allow it to obscure the true nature of the mind and to become an obstacle.  ”

In other word, shouldn’t a “man” be one who accepts who he is without judgement, looks at what is front of him without preconceived notions, accepting his moods and feelings as that present moment, not more, and holding that space sacred so that what is to come happens untainted from expectations?  I’m going off on a limb here but I felt a strange sense of finding a clue in an ancient esoteric tradition about what it means to be a man.  Something worth while exploring for all those young guys without guidance.  I should know…

The green guilt, victim of fashion?

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Tap The Source

Tapping the source for better decision making

I had a strange feeling creep up on me yesterday and realized I was feeling guilty for not being more green, or at least not outwardly pursuing the green dream.

The gist is that it’s easy to fall into the erroneous belief that everything we do must have a concrete absolute and tangible green output.  After all, everything we hear and see these days is around making our life healthier, greener and less polluted.  It’s easy to feel guilty about not consecrating your life to the green factor.  In my case, it made me smile once I scrutinized that creepy thought.

We have close to no chemicals in our household, so very little toxicity is flushed out our drains into our Oceans.  I walk or ride my bicycle pretty much every day instead of using my car.  The lights are turned off at night except when needed.  That much, we are consciously aware of our environment.  As to the thought I wasn’t directly contributing to the green movement, I realized that above all, I work with people so that they can become more aware.  The rest is up to them but my fundamental belief and hope is that once awareness sinks in, it becomes harder and harder to justify a counter-productive lifestyle.

What I got out of this little mind bend is the following.  We live in a society excessively geared towards instant gratification, tuned to outward signs of being green and tangible external actions, all making us feel good about ourselves.  While there are many people who are actively contributing to the “green movement”, I strive to raise awareness, hoping it will lead to a “greener” life in each and everyone.  Funny how thoughts creep in and how little they hold in the end.

A shopping mall on a Saturday, a glance at western society

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Gasp… Horror!  A shopping mall experience on a Saturday afternoon getting back from India.

The gist is sometimes it sounds as if we live in isolation in the middle of a crowded society.  This incredible brain twister can be felt any tie we witness people rushing to be first in line, rummage through sales, drivers who have to be the first at a traffic light and then drive slowly.  Why?  Most of us live in seclusion, disconnected form others and share little sense of being part of a community.  So, here is my experience at a shopping mall.

We just got back from India where your sense of what is important seriously challenges your priorities.  We went off the beaten path and witnessed life in secondary cities.  What we saw were people living in conditions we would deplore back home, where their main worry was if they would have food on their plate tomorrow.  Yet, somehow, these people were incredibly warm, gentle, inviting, sincere, open to us with a small we rarely witnessed back in the West.  Now fast forward back in the west…

We went to Nordstrom the following Saturday feeling we needed some new clothes.  What we witnessed was so disturbing after coming from an environment so starch and harsh with reality.  We saw people elbowing each other in order to get to the best deals of the day.  We saw people who didn’t seem to have much spatial awareness, even less as to others around them.  It felt their endeavor to be the first one to get that deal trumped any other notions of life.  It was shocking, to say the least.

It’s not to diss our society.  We have everything we need to thrive and be happy, we are not educated to look within for happiness.  Their society, on the hand has little in terms of shared material wealth but have boat loads in terms of inner values and spiritual upbringing.  Would it be great finally using all that we have at our disposal?  Don’t we owe it to our parents who built our so-called modern and developed societies?  One of the best ways is to partner with a coach in order to dig deep within and have a better vantage view.

What is the ultimate cost of staying where you are?

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This is a tough one and requires a serious, non-judgmental look inside.  What is the ultimate cost of staying the course you are on if you are not satisfied?

The gist is we all want to change but the reality is not many actually engage in the changing.  In fact, according to the survey, both formal and informal I have seen, only 1% of the people saying they want to change actually change.  So what is the issue?  The real question is how serious are you about changing, or in other words, how much is the discomfort level?  Without a strong discomfort coupled to a a serious commitment, we just wish taking no action.

So I ask you this, what is the ultimate cost for you to stay where they are, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, in your relationship, at work?  What other areas of your life can you discover where the cost outweighs the benefits of finally once and for all, being more and more yourself in any life situations?  Is there enough pain to actually move on?

Spiritual, religious? What does it mean anyway?

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As I’ve raised the question of spirituality at work these past few weeks, I noticed how people interchange religious with spirituality and vice versa.  Both are different, so how come the confusion?

The gist is spirituality and religious can be the same, spirituality encompasses religious, and sometimes, not the other way around.  It’s a question of connotations and how we view religious these days.

Spirituality versus Religious.  As with many, I find myself to be deeply spiritual but not religious at all.  The fact is for me, spirituality embraces the essence of religion and more.  Yet I noticed many people use both words to say the same thing and often time view the way I use spirituality as religious.

While in essence everything is spiritual, religious is a way of following a faith based system that is dogmatist.  The initial attraction might be spiritual, it usually ends in a closed system based on faith and patience.  Spiritual usual is more encompassing and can, or not take in parts or entire religious system.  Where the line blurs are with certain systems and ways that border on both lines.  Traditional Indian Buddhism is more a thought school that is spiritual in essence but where spirituality is not the main point.  Tibetan Buddhism aims squarely at spirituality and finding your personal deliverance via a series of systems that can be taken as whole, or parts.

Come to think of it, that is a very personal understanding of what spirituality is for me.  What is yours?  I’d be interested in hearing form you.

Besides what you say, how serious are you about doing something?

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Goal setting by understanding who you are

Picture by Nick Zart

We love to help, we jump on the occasion to do so, but besides knowing if you are the right person is also how serious that person is doing about it.

The gist is sometimes we talk just to air out what we feel and don’t necessarily want to do anything about it.

When Is It Time To Do Something About It?  Coaches have to ask and find out what is the level of discomfort and how ready is a person ready to act on it.  This becomes crucial since the success of any results depends solely on how motivated you are.  You cannot change the conditions of what ails you if you are not committed to it.

Before helping someone to help you change, you need to find out how serious you are and what have you done, if anything at all.

Thank you grasshopper…